Family Transitions: The Birth of a Two-Child Family

I remember the morning we discovered we were expecting our second child. I was a second-year pediatric resident starting my rotation in the pediatric intensive care unit. I had just given birth to our first child 14 months earlier and was still overwhelmed, yet amazed, by the process of becoming a parent. Certainly we had always hoped for more than one child but this one was coming 9 months sooner than our grand plan. Being an older, nontraditional medical student, I was already significantly older than my colleagues in residency. I wondered anxiously how I was going to explain to my residency director and my fellow residents, who so graciously covered for me on my first maternity leave, that I was pregnant, yet again. Thankfully, 9 months later our second son was born healthy and vigorous. In those long, yet short 9 months, we discovered that our material needs would drastically change. We contemplated a new car that would accommodate two car seats safely and comfortably, and anticipated finding the room, in an already cramped living space, for both a toddler bed and a crib. Perhaps most important at the time, our nanny, who already did a wonderful job of caring for our eldest child, happily accepted the opportunity to now take care of both our children, at an additional cost.